Archive for January, 2013

JAN 31 – Johor is the last bastion of Barisan Nasional but the coming general election may prove that the fortress may turn out to be merely a sand castle. If Pakatan Rakyat gets the support of 35 per cent Malay, 80 per cent Chinese and 50 per cent Indian voters in Johor, 20 parliamentary seats will fall like dominoes. Hence, Pakatan may gain the much-needed 112-seat threshold to form the next federal government with just seats from Peninsula Malaysia.

In the two rounds of seat re-delineation exercises in 1994 and 2003, many multi-ethnic mixed seats were created for Barisan Nasional to maximise its multi-ethnic appeal and to make the most out of the opposition’s inability to win across ethnic boundaries.

PAS was made to be seen by the Barisan-controlled media to non-Malays as an anathema to their interests while DAP as a threat to the Malays. Before 2008, PAS supporters rarely vote for DAP and vice versa.

The 2008 general election saw PAS benefiting from outpouring Chinese and Indian support for the “anything but UMNO” call while some urban Malays voted for DAP for the first time in their lives. Many multi-ethnic seats in the states north of Negeri Sembilan on the west coast of the Peninsula fell to the opposition. Read the rest of this entry »

“Najib is not going to be the last Umno prime minister”, so says veteran Umno leader Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad at the 15th Malaysia Strategic Outlook Conference organized by Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (Asli) today.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak clearly does not share Abdullah’s confidence and optimism or he would have called for the 13th general elections already instead of dilly-dallying with hesitation and indecision in the past two years, gaining for himself a reputation of being an even greater Flip-Flop Prime Minister than his predecessor Tun Abdullah.

Nor the Johore Mentri Besar, Datuk Ghani Othman who told Kulai Chinese organizations less than three weeks ago that Pakatan Rakyat could win Putrajaya in the 13GE although he warned that the most the PR could win would be a slim majority of 5% to 10% of the parliamentary seats – i.e. a majority from 12 to 22 parliamentary seats.

Nor the UMNO/BN éminence grise, Tun Mahathir, who seems to be increasingly pessimistic about UMNO’s chances of winning Putrajaya in the 13GE, causing him to call on Malaysian voters to support “the devil you know than the angel you don’t”, and recently, making more and more reckless and desperate statements, like:

• his baseless accusation that the historic peaceful and successful Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat at Stadium Merdeka (KL112) by over 100,000 Malaysians from all races, religions and region was an attempt to topple the elected UMNO/BN government by violent means;

• his baseless accusation that the first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman had given citizenship to one million unqualified non-Malays before Merdeka in 1957 in an attempt to justify his “citizenship-for-votes” scam in Project M in Sabah, even suggesting a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Tunku Abdul Rahman’s issue of the one million citizenship to non-Malays before Merdeka. Read the rest of this entry »

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 31 — The authorities must speed up action against Datuk Ibrahim Ali over his Bible-burning threat, says retired Attorney-General Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman, adding any further delay in acting against the veteran politician could be held against the establishment ahead of Election 2013.

The vocal Ibrahim, who heads right-wing Malay group Perkasa, had sparked a firestorm last week when he reportedly called on Muslims to torch Malay-language copies of the Christian holy book that describes the Christian god as “Allah”, an Arabic word many Muslims here believe to be exclusive to their community.

“The issue is not the burning of the Bible. What is in the issue is, did he utter those words?” Abu Talib told The Malaysian Insider in an interview.

“If so, whether those words were seditious within the Sedition Act, reading it as a whole and in the context it was made. So, whether the Bible was burned is not material though helpful in the prosecution of the case if he is charged,” he said.

The government’s former top lawyer noted the police reports filed complaining about Ibrahim’s provocative remarks were related to the “Allah” dispute that has been simmering for the past four years.

He said there was no reason for the law enforcers to procrastinate deciding whether or not to prosecute the independent federal lawmaker who has been accused of inciting tension among Malaysia’s Muslim majority camp and followers of other faiths. Read the rest of this entry »

Every day, Malaysians are provided new evidence of the failures of the transformation slogans and policies of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and why the country needs a change of federal government in the 13th General Elections around the corner.

Today, we need only refer to three current developments.

The first is the charade of the of Sabah Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into illegal immigrants entering into its second week of public hearings.

What have concerned Sabahans and Malaysians that the RCI would not be able to get to the bottom of the whole truth about the illegal legalization of illegal immigrants in Sabah causing a five-fold increase of the state’s population from 600,000 in 1970 to the current 3.3 million seem to have been justified, and this is best summed up by a Malaysiakini reader who commented:

“Now we have it. There will be 100 odd witnesses in the RCI who will claim and counter-claim until it is all so messed up that no further action will be taken. It is all a sandiwara (act).”

Speculation is rife that Pakatan could win enough in the polls to lure ruling coalition defectors and form a government.

KUALA LUMPUR: After bloodying the government’s nose in 2008 elections, a more experienced and organised Malaysian opposition is eyeing the once-unthinkable: toppling one of the world’s longest-serving governments.

Malaysians vote soon with the formerly hapless opposition buoyed by a new track record of state-level government, signs of growing voter support, and what its leader Anwar Ibrahim calls a sense of history in the making.

“I am convinced, Inshallah (God willing), that we will win government,” Anwar told AFP, evoking the winds of change that powered the “Arab Spring” elsewhere in the Muslim world.

“Of course we call it a ‘Malaysian Spring’, but our method is elections (not uprisings).”

The 57-year-old ruling bloc enjoys deep pockets, mainstream media control, an electoral system the opposition says is rigged, and a record of decades of economic growth under its authoritarian template.

Few expect the opposition to win the 112 parliamentary seats needed to take power. The three-party alliance won 82 seats in the 2008 polls, up from 21, stunning the BN with its biggest-ever setback.

But speculation is rife that Pakatan could win enough in the polls — which must be held by late June — to lure ruling coalition defectors and form a government.

“Before this year, many were in denial about Pakatan’s potential. Today, we see society beginning to accept that the possibility (of a BN defeat) is real,” said Wan Saiful Wan Jan, who runs the independent Malaysian think tank IDEAS.

The country’s stock market has trembled recently over the uncertainty as opinion polls suggest the vote will be tight. One recent survey put Najib and Anwar neck-and-neck as prime ministerial candidates.

In a Jan 12 show of force, the opposition held a rally that drew clsoe to 100,000 people.

“I think it’s very close, and the party that makes the least mistakes will be the party that wins,” said S Ambiga, , head of Bersih, an NGO coalition that has organised large public rallies for electoral reform. Read the rest of this entry »

JAN 29 — Education was institutionalised to formalise the process of knowledge acquisition and research in man’s quest for understanding. The earliest universities in the history of mankind, namely Al-Azhar, Bologna, Oxford, Palencia, Cambridge and the University of Naples (world’s first public university, 1224), have one thing in common; they were built by notable early world civilisations as institutions of research, discourse, learning, proliferation of knowledge and documentation. This contrasts largely from the role of universities today as institutions of human capital accreditation, qualification and, most unfortunately, business and profits.

Ibnu Khaldun, father of historiography, sociology and economics, in his work “Prolegomenon” (Muqaddimah), argued that the government would only gain strength and sovereignty through its citizens. This strength can only be sustained by wealth, which can only be acquired through human capital development (education), which in turn can only be achieved by justice and inclusiveness for all. Aristotle too proposed: “Education should be one and the same for all.” A system that discriminates, in our case, based on household economic ability, can and will rile an unhealthy imbalance in the quality of the resulting labour force and society. These form the basis of our argument here.

In America, the individual funds his higher education while many European countries have public-funded institutions of higher learning. The latter is the best for Malaysia. Our societal and economic progression (or digression) does not depend on any one factor, but on the interaction of economic, social and political factors over a long period of time. Let’s first look at some realities that we need to contend with to understand why the Malaysian government should fund higher education. Read the rest of this entry »

The relentless day-by-day approach of the 13th general elections has injected not only increasing urgency but also sparked a growing sense of desperation among UMNO/BN propagandists because of the lack of credibility of their propaganda.

While government departments like Department of Special Affairs (Jasa) of the Ministry of Information are being roped in to pump the UMNO/BN propaganda line that UMNO/BN can win the 13GE with a two-thirds parliamentary majority, nobody – not even UMNO/BN leaders – really believe that such an outcome is on the cards in the 13GE.

Malaysian parliamentary democracy will be healthier and more mature if a two-thirds parliamentary majority becomes a virtually impossible goal for any coalition, for this will be the surest safeguard to ensure that there can be no repetition of the bane of UMNO political hegemony imposing the “Listen, listen, listen” political culture on the other political parties in the Barisan Nasional.

In fact, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the top UMNO/BN leadership provide the best proof that they have no confidence that they could improve on their performance in the 2008 general elections, or the 13GE would have long been held already.

Instead Najib has now gone into the history books for being the longest Prime Minister in Malaysia without an elected mandate of his own.

But Najib wants to avoid making another dubious history, of being the first Prime Minister to be voted out of office in the 13GE or even to be another Tun Abdullah of being forced out by Mahathir as Prime Minister after the 13GE because he could not improve on the UMNO/BN results in 2008 and regain two-thirds parliamentary majority. Read the rest of this entry »

Interview with Suaris: The Future of Malays, Part 1.
[The original in Malay appeared in suaris.wordpress.com on January 19, 2013).

Introduction:

Dr. M. Bakri Musa’s perspective may appear alien to some readers, especially those less exposed to the Internet and the English language. It is their loss not to have ready access to his clear thinking and substantive ideas.

Suaris.wordpress.com is taking this initiative in bringing to readers especially those versed only in Malay his commentaries. Born and raised in Negri Sembilan, Bakri represents the earlier generation of Bumiputras that had been given the opportunity for an education abroad. Yet he never forgets his roots as evidenced by his extensive writings and many books. Even though he resides in America, but through his books and essays we feel close to him.

He recently released his latest book, Liberating the Malay Mind, published by ZI Publications.

In this interview, Dr. Bakri Musa discusses a critical issue, the future of Malays in our country. We are at a critical juncture in many respects, from politics to economics, and from education specifically to social arenas generally. What is the future of our people in the decades ahead and how can we best prepare for that future?

With the Sabah Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into illegal immigrants beginning its second week of public hearings tomorrow, the question posed by the former Kuala Lumpur CID chief Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim deserves attention – whether the RCI would prove to be “an exercise in futility” as it is merely intended as a whitewash and a “sandiwara” by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail to suppress the truth in the “citizenship-for-votes” scandals in the Land Below the Wind?

None of the RCI’s eight terms of reference is directed to identity those responsible for the treacherous acts against the country or for the RCI to propose any action to be taken on those responsible.

So far, there has no response to Mat Zain’s call on the Inspector-General of Police to open investigation papers following the revelations in the RCI that the late Megat Junid Megat Ayob and Abdul Aziz Shamsuddin were involved in Ops Durian Buruk, as they involved betrayal and acts of treason of the highest order.

Citing his own case in June 2000, when he was heading the KL CID, Mat Zain said the police initiated investigations against the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir immediately after Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim lodged a report on the day the former director-general of the Anti-Corruption Agency, Shafee Yahaya, gave his evidence during a civil trial, citing the then PM for abuse of power for closing its probe on former Economic Planning Unit director-general Ali Abul Hassan. Read the rest of this entry »

Walked the Thaipusam 2013 celebration with Muslim Malaysia. This is what I said”:

JAN 27 — Politicians and civil servants are saying a lot about religion nowadays, as there are competent interest5s

The Malaysian IGP or equivalent to UK’s Chief Constable has come out warning those who make fun of religion and racial issues. He says doing that can create hostilities and disunite the country.

We agree with him fully. He should use whatever powers he has to haul these people in without fear or favour.

So why are the police slow in taking up action against Ibrahim Ali?

This fellow has made seditious calls for Malaysian Muslims to seize and burn bibles.

He should have been called the instance he uttered those words. Are we waiting for some bonfires somewhere before action is taken? Then, representatives from the NGO which Ibrahim heads deny any knowledge of a planned bible burning event in Penang.

If there is one Malaysian who can smell bullshit from a mile away, it’s him. In his latest collection of essays Ask For No Bullshit, Get Some More!, Kee Thuan Chye leaves no stone unturned.

From behind the scenes of Bersih 2.0 to the speculations of the 13th general elections, every scandal and issue in the local news has a place in this book.

Just like his previous book No More Bullshit, Please, We’re All Malaysians, Kee has certainly made a name for being able to boil the tangled mess of legal jargon and deceptive semantics down to a simple English that everyone can swallow.

Kee scratches the surface of these major issues and then pulls you into the deep side to reveal all the details you never knew.

His writing unravels the stories spun by the mainstream media and lays every thread on the table, leaving you to draw your own conclusion. Read the rest of this entry »